RESIDENTS will get their first chance to tour the new £10m Crosby Lakeside Adventure Centre.

The tours on Monday will be held in conjunction with a meeting for newly formed Friends group for Waterloo Seafront Gardens and Potters Barn.

The meeting will start at 7.15pm and council staff will lead guided tours from 6.45pm.

The new centre is metres away from Marine Terrace Garden, which is one of four fronting the Waterloo conservation area. The others border Marine Crescent, Adelaide Terrace and Beach Lawn.

Potters Barn, in Cambridge Road, is also seen as the natural gateway into Crosby Coastal Park and the Lakeside Centre.

The group will elect its officers at the meeting. Council officials will talk about plans for the water centre and the coastal park.

Ian Hamilton Fazey, a member of the group, said: “We think the centre will give an enormous lift to the Waterloo and Christ Church Conservation areas.”

A preliminary public meeting was held by the group at St Edmund’s & St Thomas’ Primary School attended by more than 60 people in June.

Nick Thompson, chairman of the group, said: “The meeting in June identified the main areas of public concern. These included management and park security, restoration of the gardens, toilets and improving the environment and kiosk area at the bottom of South Road.”

Sefton’s Leisure Services Department has allocated earmarked money from the National Lottery to redesign the children’s park, which has to be spent by June.

The gardens were built in the 1930s to create jobs during the Great Depression on land was donated by owners of houses in what is now the Waterloo Conservation Area.

For more information visit http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/friendsofwaterlooseafrontgardens